WASHINGTON (CNS)—A gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington has taken on a mystical quality in the form of an exhibit
called "Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America."

The dimly lit S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution
holds more than a few nun's habits and artifacts. The exhibit also
features state-of-the-art multimedia images, photos and historic
narratives depicting the impact Catholic sisters have had in the U.S.

"It's really amazing to see all they've done for our country,"
Smithsonian spokeswoman Becky Haberacker told Catholic News Service
during a recent tour of the exhibit, which made its Washington debut
Jan. 15. "It's also really interesting to find out how rugged they are.
That just isn't something I imagined before when I thought about nuns."

For nearly 300 years communities of U.S. women religious have had a
lasting place in the American social and cultural landscape and this new
traveling exhibit honors their work and showcases their role in
American society.

The exhibit includes an 1804 letter from President Thomas Jefferson to
an Ursuline nun, braided corn husk shoes worn by pioneer sisters, the
nurse's bag of a nun used during the Civil War and student work from the
Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first all-black community.

During the tour, Sister Annmarie Sanders—a Sister of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary who is communications director for the Leadership
Conference of Women Religious —spoke of her pride in her
organization's role in assembling the traveling exhibit.
Sister Annmarie also beamed when she talked about the women featured in
the exhibit.

"So if people come to the exhibit, they would meet sisters who have been
doctors, lawyers and women who did incredible things in the early days
who served the immigrant population in ways that people probably never
dreamed possible," she said.

Perceptions of women religious 300 years ago, and today, are often not
accurate, Sister Annmarie said.

"So, we think this exhibit would show another side to what the public
might normally perceive as the life of Catholic sisters."

People who come to see the exhibit will learn that 12 Catholic sisters
arrived in New Orleans in 1727 eager to begin their work in what was
considered the "New World."

In the subsequent centuries, the nuns have established hospitals,
schools, universities, homeless shelters and orphanages, while providing
countless other social services to millions of people in the U.S., said
Sister Mary Waskowiak, president of the Institute of the Sisters of
Mercy of the Americas, who also was involved in launching the exhibit.

"The fact that almost a quarter of a million women, as religious
sisters, have shaped the life and culture of, I believe both the
Catholic Church and American society," is an amazing contribution,
Sister Mary told CNS.

"A quarter of a million people who felt called," she said, "and as I
think about these women whom I have read about, I see their stories and I
know, some of them are alive today, for me they are women who cared and
women who dared."

The "Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America" exhibit was first
displayed last May in Cincinnati, then moved to Dallas in September,
before coming to the International Gallery in the Smithsonian's Ripley
Center in January—where it will remain until April 25.

After the exhibit wraps up its Washington tour, it travels to the Statue
of Liberty National Monument/Ellis Island Immigration Museum in New
York from Sept. 24 to Jan. 22. Then it moves to the Mississippi River
Museum in Dubuque, Iowa, where it will be from February to April 2011.